KDH Scavenger Hunt

Last week KDH went on a Nature Scavenger Hunt!

We went for a walk down Cooledge to a small park behind Inman Middle School.

The children brought magnifying glasses so they could examine small items closer!

They marked each item off on a checklist when they spotted it.

"I thought this was going to be boring, but it's fun!"-Eli

We saw spiders,

rocks,

branches,

flowers,

birds,

stumps, and trees!

Next time we will take our scooters to Piedmont Park!

Nature in KDH

A few weeks ago, KDH began taking neighborhood walks.

During the first trip, the children decided to collect natural materials to create art.

Eli Sollish noticed, “These leaves look like Matisse leaves!”

The children decided that they wanted to paint the Matisse leaves. 

The following week we moved into a new classroom.

We decided to create a mitzvah tree with our natural materials.

A few of the children drew designs of what they wanted it to look like.

They then traced the design much larger onto some recycled brown paper and cut it out together.

Once cut out, the children glued their collected materials onto the paper.

We recently hung up our mitzvah tree trunk and added branches to it.

One child made a sign for it which reads: “KDH Mitzvah Tree.”

The children most recently cut out leaf shapes from scrap paper, for us to write mitzvahs on.

Soon our tree will begin to bloom with mitvahs! 

Matisse-Inspired Art in KDH/KB

One day at lunch, we read Henri’s Scissors by Jeanette Winter. 

It tells the story of the artist, Matisse’s life. The children learned how later in life Matisse made art by painting, then cutting shapes from the paper. He then arranged the shapes into a composition and glued them on to another piece of paper.

Inspired by this process, the children wanted to make their own art this way. 

The Morahs provided the children with two different painting opportunities. 

First they painted with red, yellow, and orange watercolors using droppers. 

Next the children made paintings with bright blue, purple, and teal acrylic paint. 

Once dry, the children traced and cut Matisse-like shapes out of the paintings. 

They glued the shapes into their own compositions on brightly colored construction paper. 

Kitah Alef Keeps Germs at Bay

We are so happy to be back at school for camp! Due to the current need to minimize germ spread, we make sure to incorporate extra sanitary practices into our daily routine. 

When we and the children enter school in the morning, the first thing we do is we get our temperature checked to make sure we don't have fever.

We know how important it is these days to wash our hands! Until we get to the sink, we each receive a squirt of hand sanitizer for a quick clean.

We wash our hands many times a day - when we transition from outside to inside or vice versa, after diaper changes and before meals. There's a song we like to sing while washing our hands to make sure we scrub for long enough and remember to get the soap to all parts of the hands. It goes like this:

Tune of: "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"

Wash, wash, wash your hands,

Play the washing game,

Rub and scrub and rub and scrub 

'Til germs go down the drain. x2

Tune of: "Where is Thumbkin"

Over, under, over, under, 

In between, in between,

Rub your hands together, 

Rub your hands together,

Now they're clean. Now they're clean!

We're also practicing catching our coughs and sneezes with our elbows.

In the classroom our table materials are organized onto trays to designate each child's spot. 

To help the children feel more comfortable around adults wearing masks, we had an activity of decorating masks for our baby dolls! 

We colored the masks with markers, and we were finished, we brought them to circle time to sing with our babies and help keep them safe. When children go through the motions of caring for their babies, the mirror neurons in their brains tell them they're safe as well.

Implementing these practices at school and extending them to home-school transitions is the best way we can prevent the spread of germs and keep everyone as safe as possible. 

Here's to a fun and safe summer!